Georgia: 

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Hello, and welcome to ‘Watt's up with energy?’, a gridX podcast.

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I'm your host, Georgia Knapp.

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We have already covered the technical aspect of time of use, both the tariffs and the optimization.

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So in this episode, we are going to be taking a look at the commercial side.

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And joining me to talk more about this is Jonas Finkele, our go-to market expert at gridX.

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Jonas: 

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Thanks for having me, Georgia.

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Georgia: 

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And to begin, can you just, you know, introduce yourself?

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What brought you to the world of energy?

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Jonas: 

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Absolutely.

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As you said, I work as a go-to-market manager at gridX.

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I joined the company one and a half years ago after different roles in startup and venture capital.

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So more of a generalist kind of background.

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So what brought me to energy?

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Yeah, I mean, most listeners of the podcast, I guess, would probably agree that the transition from fossils to a renewable energy world is like one of the, if not the most substantial challenge of our time, right?

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So, and it's, yeah, well, it's arguably a tough nut to crack as well.

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Georgia: 

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Yeah.

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Jonas:

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So yeah, working on that challenge, I guess, and trying to solve it is what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning.

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And what got me to gridX.

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Georgia: 

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And then can you explain what exactly it is you do as a go-to market manager?

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And then I guess how this equates to the rollout of innovative products, like time of use tariffs?

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Jonas: 

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Absolutely.

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If we look at what gridX has been doing in the past as a technology provider of energy management solutions, right?

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Traditionally, that meant if you look at a residential home, we would make sure that all the assets in that home, PV system, battery, EV charger or heat pumps, they would talk to each other, and they can be optimized as one system, right?

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But this optimization that we would be doing, that's mainly happening within the house.

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We're not interacting with a lot of external parties.

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We're just making sure you consume as much as possible of your local PV within your home.

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Now, what's different with the emergence of time of use tariff is that we're interacting as the energy management system, we're interacting with energy markets, with energy providers, with smart metering companies. Hence, the whole world of energy management got a bit more complex. There's more stakeholders involved, and we need to bring those different stakeholders and puzzle pieces together to really create an end-customer solution out of that.

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And this is sort of what I'm focusing on as a go-to-market manager, is bringing those puzzle pieces together, making sure we create end-customer solutions that really create value, and where all those different stakeholders work together.

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Georgia: 

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Okay.

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And then just to make sure that I'm understanding, because when you're saying the market, you mean the market of energy service providers, or you mean the market like intraday, day ahead?

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It's that one or is it both?

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Jonas: 

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Exactly. We're really talking about the sort of markets where electricity is traded, right? It's like intraday, day ahead, all those different markets. And we need to interact with those markets, because this is where the electricity is bought and where we get sort of the price signals for that we're using for our optimization as well. Yeah.

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Georgia: 

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Okay.

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And then in your view, what advantages do time of use tiers provide for stakeholders across the energy value chain?

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Jonas: 

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That's a really good question. And I guess the obvious answer, obviously, is the consumers themselves, right? This is like the users of that product. How do they benefit? Well, they can basically shift their consumption when they consume energy to specific time intervals when electricity is cheap. Hence, the more shiftable load you have, the more you can save, right? So if you live in an apartment, the only thing you can basically adjust is when you turn on your dishwasher. There's not so much load that you can shift.

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If you live in your own home and you have an EV, for example, this is a really big load that you can decide when you want to load your EV. Hence, you would probably benefit more from dynamic tariffs than me living in my city apartment.

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Georgia: 

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Who else is benefiting?

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Jonas: 

I mean, apart from the actual consumer, those kind of tariffs can obviously be a means for energy providers as well to differentiate themselves, to say, hey, I've got this innovative solution for you, prosume a household, and basically to differentiate themselves against other providers.

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Now, you can argue that that differentiation is limited because many players will be offering dynamic tariffs and are also obliged by regulation to offer dynamic tariffs.

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But then especially in combination with home energy management systems, you can actually create quite unique integrated solutions, not just offering the tariff, but really having that integrated solution for prosumers as a hems with tariff.

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And then, I guess, this is where the next step of the game will lie for energy providers as well, is really growing into those service companies and solution and service providers. And is it largely then for people who are in stand-alone homes or like are people who live in apartments like yourself, myself, are we still viable customers for these energy providers? I think the mass market is still people living in apartments, right, so all energy providers, they will need to cater to that segment as well. It's just like the most valuable segment for them in terms of like energy consumption per customer will be those single and two-family houses. Now with the electrification of mobility and heat especially, these really have like huge grid consumption still, and will, I guess, be the main target for dynamic tariffs as well.

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Georgia: 

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Okay.

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What do you see as some of the key drivers or barriers to a widespread adoption of time of use tariffs?

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Jonas: 

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One topic that is discussed a lot is the infrastructure needed to measure and build electricity based on your actual consumption, right? So if you want to benefit from a time of use tariff, your provider needs to know how much electricity you consumed at what time. Hence, you would need a smart meter. In my city apartment, we don't have a smart meter.

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Like, my provider knows how much electricity I consumed over the course of a year, but not in which 15-minute interval. Hence, this infrastructure is really one of the key barriers to the widespread adoption, alongside the processes necessary to register and bill customers accordingly. So the IT systems that our grid operators and our energy providers are using, these obviously need to be adapted as well. And you can think of large traditional utilities. It's quite a migration project, oftentimes, to sort of get the IT systems running in the right way as well.

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So this sort of whole infrastructure is what's discussed a lot. I do think there's a big second component to it, and that's really sort of the end customer adoption, right? So a lot of education and awareness needs to happen for end users really wanting to use those kind of tariffs as well. The commodity world hasn't been a very sexy or emotional topic.

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Your electricity would just come out of your socket, right? You don't really care where it's coming from traditionally. Now this is changing. There's more opportunities, as you said, like, oh, I can benefit from when I turn on my washing machine potentially. So there's like this shift in people's minds needs to happen, that this can really be something sexy as well. But then also, there's this complexity layer to it, right? We're talking dynamic tariffs now. You mentioned different markets where your electricity is coming from.

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Day-ahead markets, intraday markets. We're talking about different regulations. It's easy to lose customers or not, like, to lose their interest in that, right? Because it's so complex.

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So reducing that complexity for end customers really will be key for the mass adoption of those kind of tariffs. And there are thought leaders in this game, right? Like, you mentioned Tibber or 1.5, who are really doing very well in this consumer education and engagement part for making it possible to get to a mass adoption of those kind of technologies. So, yeah, I guess it's mostly infrastructure and then customer education.

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Georgia: 

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And because right now, you would say the mass population of people don't, they don't know what these terms are, like time of use, dynamic pricing.

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Jonas. 

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It's very much market dependent. So if you look into the Nordics, for example, where also the adoption of smart meters is already very high, I guess in Norway, you would have a smart meter adoption of like 99% or so. And if you look into the tariff split, then also I think more than 90% of people in Norway have dynamic tariffs, actually. So obviously, the awareness there is very, very high. If we look at Germany, there recently was a PV magazine study showing that 70% of Germans don't know what a dynamic tariff is.

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Georgia: 

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Oh, dang. I thought you're going to say the other way. And I was going to be like, oh, but that's good.

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Jonas. 

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That would be great. But unfortunately, it's really like we live in a bubble, right? We're talking about those terms every day in our little energy world. But for the mass market, a lot of people still don't know what that is. And we can confirm that with our own research as well, right? We're doing a lot of user research.

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And we do see that there's a lot of education still to be happening. I mean, that means 30% do know what it is. And Germany has a huge population. So, it's not awful if we want to be a little optimistic.

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Georgia: 

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Absolutely.

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Do you think, like, what...

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I don't know, what would it take to make it sexier, to make it more like the mass public understand these terms, get to, like, adopt them, embrace them?

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Jonas: 

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And that's a very good point. And I guess taking away that complexity is really key. And there's two components, I guess, complexity and risk aversion. So, especially within Germany, risk aversion is quite a big topic. So, people being afraid of being exposed to high prices. What we see there is, like, first, I mean, you can do as much as education as you want, but some people will always stay sceptic.

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So, you might also need to think about different kind of, like, tariff designs. We see tariffs emerging with price caps, for example, protecting people from very high prices. So, it's a risk aversion part of it. But then also, like, really reducing complexity and getting simplicity into that kind of product. I feel that Tibber is actually a great example. They made dynamic tariffs really mainstream in Norway and Sweden, right? And apart from just offering a regular dynamic tariff, they have this program called Grid Rewards. And I think that summarizes really nicely how you can simplify the complexity of that.

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What they do basically is they say, hey, dear consumer, right? We optimize for you in the background when there's a grid event. You get a benefit for helping to stabilize the grid. We do everything that's needed. You just see, oh, there's a grid event. I'm making more money. I help to stabilize the grid. So it's just like they found really nice ways to sort of simplify this complex topic and really engaging consumers in it. I think we're going to have to see more of that, I guess. And we will.

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Georgia: 

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And so obviously, the Nordics are doing this very well.

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Are there any countries, in your opinion, who are lagging behind with time of use optimization?

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I mean, Germany, it seems like we're kind of maybe middle of the road.

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Jonas: 

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I would say, unfortunately, that Germany is lagging quite a bit behind.

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I would love to call it out differently.

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But I mean, I just looked up the numbers again.

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I think we have like 2% of installed smart meters across Germany.

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There is a lot of movement in the regulation now to really fuel that, right?

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And to really get ahead here.

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So there's a lot of optimism currently in the industry.

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But right now, I guess we're at 2% of smart meters in Germany, and hence really only a marginal amount of people is really used to those kind of turfs.

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We do see more and more players popping up, though.

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So it's becoming a more and more talked about topic.

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And I'm very optimistic with the smart media infrastructure picking up, that we're going to see even within this year, we're going to see quite an increase in that.

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But right now, I would say, yeah, we're a good example for a country lagging behind in that, compared to our Nordic colleagues.

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Georgia: 

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Do you by any chance know how the Iberian Peninsula does, how the UK does?

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Jonas: 

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Um, like Spain, for example, I think the adoption is really picking up.

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In the UK, you would think that dynamic tariffs are quite common there already.

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However, because we talk about big players like Octopus Energy, really educating a lot of people.

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But actually, adoption of really pure dynamic tariffs is much lower than you would think.

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What you see a lot in the UK is sort of type of use tariffs.

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That is basically you get a different rate for your EV or for your heat pump.

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So it doesn't depend when you consume energy, but more through which kind of appliance.

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So there's really a wide variety of of tariffs that are being used there.

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Georgia: 

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Okay.

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And from your perspective, how can companies effectively differentiate their time of use offerings in...

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I mean, you were already starting to touch upon this, but do you see any strategies where they can try to up their competitive advantage with time of use, especially with...

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in markets where many providers are going to start offering these or are offering these?

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Jonas: 

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Absolutely.

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And that's a really interesting one.

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I think we're really just at the beginning of that, a whole chapter of innovative tariff designs, right?

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And we're now time out in Germany or just kind of in general?

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I would say in general even.

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I mean, we've seen these sort of puristic dynamic tariffs, right?

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It's where the end customers are really directly exposed to the volatilities of the markets and they don't pay any risk premiums.

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And this is what people talk a lot about now.

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But this is also a first form of where this whole journey can go.

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We talked about every consumer is different, different risk aversions, different levels of flexibility also.

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So how much flexible load do they have?

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Do they have an EV?

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How much of the time is there EV at home?

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And we do see different approaches slightly emerging for those sort of different consumer types, right?

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We've talked about those capped tariffs.

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You might have a dynamic tariff that is capped at a maximum.

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We do see fixed rate tariffs with a flexibility bonus.

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So all the optimization is actually happening behind the scenes.

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You get a fixed price for your electricity, but in return for your energy provider to be able to steer your assets, you get a bonus.

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So you don't have that risk, but you get an additional benefit for being steerable.

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And then there's even that potential for more individual tariffs.

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So if your energy provider knows a lot of data about when you have your EV plugged in, how much of the time on average is it at home, how much flexibility is there really to play around with, and they optimize in the background, then they could potentially design really individualized tariffs with different rates based on different consumer profiles.

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And we haven't really seen this picking up so much yet, but there's a lot of potential.

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If you combine tariff with energy management solutions, then you can really build a variety of tariffs and really work on that differentiation part as well.

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Crucial part about that is you need to be able to steer those assets.

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Georgia: 

Yeah.

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Jonas: 

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Can you even take advantage of a dynamic tariff if you do not have an energy management system?

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I mean, technically, you could manually plug in your EV, for example, right?

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You could check electricity prices and say, oh, it's going to be cheap in two hours.

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I'm going to plug in my car.

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But then that's quite tedious if you want to get up at 2 a.m. in the morning, plug in your car.

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So I guess the big benefit really lies in the combination of HEMS and dynamic tariffs.

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Georgia:

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And then this is something that actually I thought about when I was chatting with Christian and then forgot to ask him, do you see dynamic tariffs or time of use tariffs, if you see them as two different things, as evergreen, which might be kind of a marketing term, but meaning like, because whenever we talk about, you can take advantage of, everyone can, if we all do dynamic tariffs, we all do time of use, then we can all charge our EVs in the middle of the night when demand is low.

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But then if everyone is doing that in the middle of the night, that doesn't make demand low.

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So I don't know, would then, it would just continually, like when prices are low, high, they're just going to continually fluctuate at all times and make it evergreen, or would we then eventually have this problem again decades down the line?

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Jonas: 

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That's a very, very fair point.

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So I mean, if everyone would behave in a perfect way, obviously, then the sort of the volatilities would decrease in the market, and you would see less of those price fluctuations.

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And we see that happening in different markets.

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However, I feel we are really coming from an energy system where production has always followed demand, right?

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So if there was a lot of demand, then you would ramp up some big power plant and you would cover that demand.

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We are now moving to a system where demand needs to follow production more and more because production gets more volatile.

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We have all of those renewables, right?

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If we further increase the share of renewables, that volatility is going to increase as well.

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The sun is not always shining, the wind is not always blowing.

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Hence, you always have two sides to that.

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You have consumers trying to follow that volatile production.

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If everyone would do that, perfect.

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This is exactly where we need to get, right?

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But there will still be fluctuations in prices because of the volatile generation.

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So really, dynamic tariffs are actually a crucial part to incentivize consumers to use energy when it is abundant.

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So it's actually, yeah, it's a very important mean to make the energy transition work and to really get to that system where demand follows production.

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Obviously, if everyone would always follow perfectly at any given time, then we wouldn't see much fluctuations and people would benefit less from following that demand.

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But it is a very, very important means to really make the energy transition work.

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Georgia: 

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And then how will partnerships across the energy ecosystem also incentivize all this or push it forward?

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Jonas: 

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I mean, we've touched slightly on that, right?

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It's like that whole value chain is just fairly complex.

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So we've talked about smart metering infrastructure, the billing, but also the tariff design, and really creating a strong and customer product out of all this.

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And then integrating all of that with the physical world of inverters and wall boxes and heat pumps through a home energy management system.

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So really, I don't think one player can cover all of that.

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Different players will need to focus on their core competencies.

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And for that, we will need strong partnerships across that full value chain.

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And yeah, I guess that goes really nicely back to what we've talked about in the beginning.

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This is really what gets me up in the morning is like this.

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How can we make households benefit from the energy transition, joining forces and creating great solutions with our partners?

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Because that's what it's about.

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We won't be able to do it alone.

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We will need partners for that, absolutely.

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Georgia: 

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And then looking ahead, what shifts or trends do you foresee in the commercial landscape for time of use tariffs across Europe, maybe?

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Jonas: 

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I mean, first of all, and Germany is not the only country in that, is like with the emergence of more and more smart meters, like the infrastructure needed, plus all those innovative players that we've been seeing recently that are offering those kind of tariffs.

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I'm very certain we're going to see quite a ramp up of time of use tariff within the next year and next couple of years.

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Georgia: 

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Across Europe.

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Jonas: 

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Across Europe, which is crucially necessary for our energy systems, as we have been discussing.

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Not all energy providers will be able to compete in that market, right?

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There, it's more and more competitive and complex, so we might see some consolidation as well, especially among the really smaller players, like the local and regional utilities.

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We will see some of those smaller players also adopting white-label solutions if they can't keep up with the complexity really of that new procurement and billing, etc.

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themselves.

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So this is like a trend that we might be seeing, is those white-labeled tariff solutions.

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And then I'm really excited really to see that transition of households participating more and more in demand-side flexibility, really, through those dynamic tariffs and EMS solutions.

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I'm also curious to see how the electricity tariff of the future will look like. Will it be the fully dynamic tariff, as we have been discussing? Will we see more and more of those individualized tariffs? That's really still open.

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We're discussing a lot with different players across the industry, and there's no clear answer to that yet.

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We see different approaches. I'm very, very curious to see where this will take us.

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Georgia: 

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And would you have any advice to companies about how to maybe prepare for these changes?

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Jonas: 

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Absolutely.

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I mean, if we talk about energy providers, especially like the larger traditional ones, they're facing a few major challenges, but also opportunities at the moment, right?

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That is, because of all of those new market entrants, the consumer expectations have really risen in terms of integrated digital solutions.

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At the same time, the traditional commodity business isn't as secure anymore.

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There's the risk of declining revenues from that, right?

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So, this shift to really become a solution provider, to not just make some margin on the kilowatt hour, but really provide integrated solutions to prosumer households.

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This is really where we're going to see the shift of some of the big utilities across Europe.

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Georgia: 

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Okay.

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And then, this actually brings me into a rapid fire round.

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All right, so, Kindle or paperback?

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Jonas: 

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Totally paperback.

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Georgia: 

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Do you want me to elaborate on that?

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Sure, yeah.

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Yeah, it's a totally different feeling.

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I do like reading books.

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It can be very practical to have your Kindle on travels.

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It's a different feeling if you have a paperback in your hand.#

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Georgia: 

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I know. I do like the physical book, but I am a Kindle girl now. Feels like a shame to say that.

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Coffee or tea?

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Jonas: 

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Oh, that would be coffee.

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I would love to drink more tea, but then I love coffee.

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Georgia: 

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Thoughts on the 5 a.m. club? Are you pro? Do you do it?

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Jonas: 

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Yeah, more of like 6:30 a.m.club, but I do like the concept. It's like getting up at a regular time and getting stuff done in the morning.

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It does make your start really good, yeah.

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Georgia: 

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Most energy efficient thing you did in 2024?

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Jonas: 

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Most energy efficient thing?

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Oh, wow. I'll have to think about that for a second. Well, basically, living in my small city apartment, we were basically not using any electricity because the only thing we had was our fridge, right?

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I think the amount we actually paid for electricity was like less than 20 euros. So I think that was a pretty energy efficient year. We just moved to a bigger apartment, so it might look different now.

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But 2024 was good for us.

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Georgia: 

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Okay. And I guess, yeah, if you're just reading paperbacks, you're also saving having to charge a Kindle.

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Jonas: 

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There you go.

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Georgia:

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Your favorite thing about working in smart energy?

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Jonas: 

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I think this is really like the enabler to solve some of the biggest problems that we're having currently, right?

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It's like making that energy transition work. We've been talking about that. And that really motivates me.

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Georgia: 

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If you could automate one household task with time of use technology, what would it be?

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Jonas: 

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That would certainly be my vacuum cleaner.

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So, time of use technology alone wouldn't do it.

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But if I would get up in the morning, and the whole apartment would have been cleaned by the hour, that would be really nice.

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Georgia: 

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My god, that would be nice.

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Jonas: 

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Right?

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Georgia: 

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Got a dog and a cat.

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I would absolutely love that.

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If you could redesign one piece of the energy system, what would it be?

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Jonas: 

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I think really the big challenge is that very manual grid and metering operation that we're currently having.

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So if we can get that one smart, smart grid operations and obviously smart metering, then that would be the piece that I would change.

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Georgia: 

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Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?

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Jonas: 

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Absolutely Harry Potter. Big childhood memories.

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Georgia: 

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So if those characters were real and around today, which would be the best at supporting the energy transition?

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Jonas: 

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That would definitely be Dumbledore. This very, very wise yet forward thinking guy. Very uncontroversial at times.

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Georgia: 

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Yeah. Who do you think would be the worst at pushing the energy transition forward? I mean, besides Voldemort.

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Jonas: 

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I feel like that one. That's Dolores Umbridge. That's really nerdy now.

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Georgia: 

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Oh, yeah.

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Jonas: 

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No, no, but that's, yeah. Yeah, she would stand there in her pink suit and keep everything as it is.

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Georgia: 

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What was your favorite or most memorable piece of energy news from the past year, two years?

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Jonas: 

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That would be Germany achieving a record share of renewables in 2024 for the first time actually exceeding fossil fuels.

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That was a big one.

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Georgia: 

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Nice.

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Jonas: 

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Yeah.

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Georgia: 

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And what is one energy asset you think everyone should use in Spring?

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Jonas: 

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I was going to say heat pumps, because I'm just fascinated by the technology. Maybe spring isn't a perfect timing.

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You should use them in winter more.

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Georgia: 

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But they can create cool air, too.

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Jonas: 

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Yeah, right. Exactly. They work both ways.

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Georgia: 

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Yeah, nice. And then for word association, so I'll just say a word and just say the first thing that comes to your mind.

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So clean tech.

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Jonas: 

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gridX.

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Georgia: 

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Energy management.

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Jonas: 

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gridX, again.

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Georgia: 

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Solar panels.

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Jonas: 

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I would go with 1,5.

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Georgia: 

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Okay. Batteries.

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Jonas: 

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Inverter.

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Georgia: 

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Time of use.

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Jonas: 

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Tariffs.

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Georgia: 

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And optimization.

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Jonas: 

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Maximize and customer savings.

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Georgia: 

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Nice.

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Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. I think I don't really talk to many people too much about the commercial side only. So this was very interesting.

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Jonas: 

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Nice. Likewise. Thanks for having me.

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Georgia:

If you'd like to learn more about the world of renewable energy or energy management systems, be sure to check out our website, gridX.ai, where we produce regular blogs and glossaries about the subject.

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You can also follow us on LinkedIn, or on Twitter and Instagram @getgridX.